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Scientists find 7.2M-year-old pre-human remains in the Balkans
- torrance 9y agoThe title on this needs to be corrected to match the article.
- ry_ry 9y ago"Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe" I have no idea what that even says :(
- cgb223 9y agoBut on the plus side I've got a lot of great words to use in Scrabble now
- ZenoArrow 9y agoIf I had to guess, I'd say it's being suggested that Graecopithecus is a species that modern humans are descended from. Late Miocene sounds like an era in the history of the world.
- gatlinnewhouse 9y agoI'll take a stab "Evolutionary Ancestors of Modern Humans Originate from Greece Instead of Africa"
- pavanky 9y agoIt means they found an ancestor species to homonids in Europe. The title is wrong because it says Europe was a birthplace of mankind instead of a place an ancestor species of Humans evolved.
- sprocketonline 9y agoI need an article written in plain English which interprets this article.
- ojosilva 9y agoHere, try this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14399153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14399153 Edit: created a separate HN thread.
- dgellow 9y agoCould someone "explain like I'm five" the article?
- ddoolin 9y agoFossils belonging to a species found in Greece showed similar features to the earliest known hominins (human species lineage), but were even older, shifting the "birthplace" of the modern human species from Africa to Europe.
- rosser 9y agoThey found some fossils, including jawbones and teeth, in Greece belonging to an evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens sapiens that seem to be older than those found elsewhere.
- gatlinnewhouse 9y agoHmm. Isn't Mesopotamia like the "cradle of civilization," and Greece is far but not terribly far from Mesopotamia. While shocking news, maybe the first civilizations came from Mesopotamia/Mediterranean Sea area because people had been there the longest?
- s_m_t 9y agoCivilization happened long after humans came about
- gatlinnewhouse 9y agoGood point. I didn't think through this terribly much to be honest.
- s_m_t 9y agoEasy mistake to make, there is a reason they call it 'pre-history' :-)
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- bpodgursky 9y agoI'm not remotely an anthropologist, but my very-simple take on this is that it has no impact on the out-of-africa hypothesis which happened relatively recently (~60k years ago) -- this just suggests that ~7mm years ago, earlier human hominids were found in Europe. (think, maybe Lucy's ancestors came from Bulgaria. or had a dead family tree which lived in Bulgaria.)
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago7m years ago there already was Bulgaria? Didn't know!
- flukus 9y agoRather than disputing the out of Africa theory, it seems to propose an earlier "into africa" stage. It may lend some credence to the multi-regional hypothesis though.
- microwavecamera 9y agohttp://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151013-how-interbreeding-shaped-us http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151013-how-interbreeding-sh... Seems likely.
- vgy7ujm 9y agoI knew it!
- ZenoArrow 9y agoHow? Aside from that, this are just the oldest known fossils with human traits, how will your world view change if we find evidence of an even older ancestor outside Europe?
- gatlinnewhouse 9y agoThis is #1 on the front page right now. 41 people have voted for it. Please, someone explain this article; I like others have noted, have no idea what is going on and the title is a fairly large claim (at least from my understanding which is that of a high schooler's).
- chx 9y agoWhile there's little doubt of a "recent" spread of humanity out of Africa, 100 000 years ago or so and also development of earlier humans there. This is perhaps what you've learned. But this article talks about an earlier period of time, it discusses some fossils in Greece / Bulgaria that are some 7 million year old and are more human than ape. It's possible that the well known and documented development of humanity in Africa was preceded by a migration of these into Africa perhaps seeking warmer places during a cooler period millions of years ago. We simple do not know much about the transition from ape to human and this might be an important step. An emphasis on might. We know little.
- rubyn00bie 9y agoThe title is misleading (as written on HN) because the meaning of "hominim" is more to do with what we, humans, and other hominim (like neanderthals etc) evolved from. See linked chart: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yEUEavwMSCE/ULtMp3e_cVI/AAAAAAAAADQ/Y_JxBB5ag0s/s1600/familytree_page.tif http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yEUEavwMSCE/ULtMp3e_cVI/AAAAAAAAAD... This isn't our specific species but rather whatever we and similar species evolved from. I'm absolutely no expert on the subject. I actually find the title offensive if I'm right but I'd happily be wrong. Mostly because I'm sensitive to how unlikely it is people are up voting this because they understand it and rather they want it to reflect their world views. Edit: for those downvoting me, could you explain why? I'm happy to learn. It's just weird to see a sudden surge in down votes with no comments explaining how I am ignorant or wrong.
- UweSchmidt 9y agoI just upvoted the article for unearthing more hominim, no need for an ad hominem.
- rubyn00bie 9y agoI don't see how the article being incorrectly titled is ad hominem. It does appear to reflect the world view as opposed to the science within the article. Can you please explain further or qualify your statement so that I can learn. As I said in my comment I'm happy to be wrong but you provided nothing. I'd say your comment as it stands is ad hominem if anything.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- UweSchmidt 9y agoIt seemed like you suggested that upvoters just begrudge Hipster-Africa for having humans before they were cool. I think it's absolutely amazing how we are finding out how humans and almost-humans lived, met, invented the first things, developed culture... I also like my little pun :)
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- manojlds 9y agoLook up Kumari Kandam for what (we) Tamils think as the origin of mankind. Edit - Not sure why I am being downvoted. I didn't claim it to be true. It seemed relevant and a lot of folks around me believe it.
- flukus 9y agoTLDR: It's Lemuria, the Atlantis of the subcontinent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_Kandam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_Kandam). It has about as much relevance as the biblical garden of eden.
- Bakary 9y agoJust read about this, it's a pretty cool origin myth! I had never heard about the legend of Lemuria before.
- arjie 9y agoHaha, thanks. This is quite entertaining. A modern origin myth. Never thought I'd see something like that widespread uptake. It says that textbooks as late as 1981 had this stuff in them. Fascinating. Boy am I glad they got rid of this stuff by the time I was in school in the '90s.
- rosser 9y agoTL;DR: They found some fossils in Greece and Bulgaria, the jaws and teeth of which suggest they belonged to an evolutionary ancestor of Homo sapiens sapiens, and which seem to be older than any other such fossil records. "If this status is confirmed by additional fossil evidence, Graecopithecus would be the oldest known hominin..." where hominin is defined in the paper to mean "humans and their non-ape ancestors". EDIT: phrasing and clarity.
- LoSboccacc 9y agoit's weird to find just one fossil, with all the excavations going on and around in Europe.
- cm2187 9y agoYou could argue the contrary. When some construction is going on in Europe, if something is found in the ground, there is a high chance it will result in a scientific excavation. When construction goes on in Africa (when it even does) I doubt the project will be interrupted often to call scientists. So there should be a selection bias toward developped countries in finding remains in the ground.
- dEnigma 9y agoIsn't that exactly the point the parent comment made? I think you misinterpreted his "excavation" (as in archeological excavation) as "excavation for the purpose of construction". But maybe I am the one who misunderstood.
- LoSboccacc 9y agothat was my point, sorry if it wasn't clear can't edit now: that there should be more finds in Europe due all the construction going on
- cm2187 9y agoBut what I mean is slightly different. That the fact that we find these rare bones in Europe but not in Africa may have more to do with less scientific excavations going on in Africa than with the species not being present in Africa at that period.
- z3t4 9y agoan idea: Early humans walked a lot. We might have been season movers.
- guelo 9y agoWhat is up with the resurgence of euro-pride among young white guys? I'm genuinely curious were it's coming from, it definitely feels like a new phenomenon in the last 2-3 years.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nyolfen 9y agoidentity politics is for everyone
- ryanx435 9y agoIt's push back against the toxic strands of SJW culture that have gone from "diversity is good" to "white culure is bad". It's a small but very vocal branch of SJWs against a small and very vocal branch of counter SJWs, but both sides of it are in a meme war (using the scientific definition of meme: a mechanism to transfer ideas and culture) and the effects of their culture clashes are large enough for you and I to notice.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoIs it really so toxic to point out that the average white male in American society enjoys certain privileges that are unavailable to the average member of any other class? Or that the average black male is subject to multiple disadvantages that members of other classes don't usually experience? Also, the use of the term SJW might appear 'edgy' but its overuse has turned it into a marker of nothing but intellectual vapidity.
- tasty_freeze 9y agoThere is a significant number of people who vehemently disagree with what you (rightly) suggest should be an obvious truth. For them, the only racism is against white people, and that "minorities" (for whichever subgroup they care to categorize) have it easy.
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- defen 9y agoFor a somewhat skeptical take: http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/miocene/graecopithecus/graecopithecus-fuss-2017.html http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/miocene/graecopithecus/g...
- a_bonobo 9y agoThis is a good take which, IMHO, fits the dominant out-of-Africa data Quote: >I think we should take seriously that Graecopithecus premolar root morphology may be yet another demonstration that supposed “hominin” characters actually evolved in other branches of apes during the Miocene. This feature is far from alone. Many other features that supposedly link Ardipithecus or Sahelanthropus with hominins are also found in other Miocene fossils. My colleagues and I documented some of these Miocene ape-like features in Sahelanthropus in 2006. So the tooth-form that appears only in hominins could not be a marker, but a very similar tooth-form could have developed in non-hominins
- not_that_noob 9y agoThe human evolutionary 'tree' is very tangled, and evidence exists for the emergence of homonim from Africa, some of which moved into Europe, and some of which could have then possibly migrated back to Africa. As sea levels rose and fell, new routes were forged or land disappeared, enabling all this back and forth. Homo Sapiens is a descendant of this tree, and emerged from Africa. So that has not changed. What they find is that a hominim in Europe could have been an ancestor to Homo Sapiens way back in the tree. So the potential explanation is that this or a descendant found its way to Africa, and then gave rise eventually to Homo Sapiens.
- trhway 9y ago>So the potential explanation is that this or a descendant found its way to Africa, and then gave rise eventually to Homo Sapiens. given that Mediterranean dried out completely about 1M years later, back then there weren't 2 different things - Europe and Africa - like today, just a huge valley where may be a large part of our ancestors' evolution took place.
- valuearb 9y agoWow, did not know that. The idea that the Mediterranean was a huge valley with some areas more than a mile below sea level is crazy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis
- grzm 9y agoArticle title: Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe
- hl5 9y agoThe problem with these scientists is they are far too young to have played Ultima II and thus missed out on the opportunity to learn about Pangea.
- WillyOnWheels 9y agoThis article goes into the supporters and detractors of the research https://www.newscientist.com/article/2132026-our-common-ancestor-with-chimps-may-be-from-europe-not-africa/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2132026-our-common-ance...